Undeadly by Michelle Vail

Summary: The day I turned 16, my boyfriend-to-be died. I brought him back to life. Then things got a little weird…

Molly Bartolucci wants to blend in, date hottie Rick and keep her zombie-raising abilities on the down-low. Then the god Anubis chooses her to become a reaper—and she accidentally undoes the work of another reaper, Rath. Within days, she’s shipped off to the Nekyia Academy, an elite boarding school that trains the best necromancers in the world. And her personal reaping tutor? Rath.

Life at Nekyia has its plusses. Molly has her own personal ghoul, for one. Rick follows her there out of the blue, for another…except, there’s something a little off about him. When students at the academy start to die and Rath disappears, Molly starts to wonder if anything is as it seems. Only one thing is certain—-Molly’s got an undeadly knack for finding trouble….

Review:

Undeadly had potential to be an intriguing story about necromancy, but the plot wasn’t very interesting, and I couldn’t connect with the characters, so I couldn’t really get into the book no matter how hard I tried.

First of all, Molly was a super annoying character, and she really hit you hard in the first several pages with her diary entry. Wow, oh, wow. For those, who just couldn’t stand it, like me, hang in there because I promise the rest of the book won’t be like that. Don’t get me wrong, Molly still had irritating tendencies, and the words that come out her mouth make me want to roll my eyes. But there are only a few diary entries.

Now the story itself had the typical developmentabout the girl who finds out she’s not really who she thought she was all along (although she did know that she was somewhat gifted in the reaping business, though not quite what she was led to believe); she is sent off to boarding school; she trains to kick butt (though not so much in this book compared to others); she learns not all is what it appears to be; and she solves the current mystery, with the typical unusual suspect.

I wish the book had offered something beyond that, but it didn’t. So what in the world did I mean when I said the book had potential?

Well, Molly started out knowing she was some sort of heka. The world that Vail could have created with that concept could have been something really interesting.I’m not saying bogged down the story with setting up different characters were these gifts and going to lengths with world-building description. But I was kind of disappointed with what we gotout of it. And apparently, it seemed pretty common, but it’s still somewhat of a secret in the human world? I think that limited Vail’s options, forcing readers into that boarding school world.

And I’m sorry, but the relationship with Rick and his role in this whole story was kind of lame.I mean, Molly basically had a longtime crush on this dude, and Vail takes an amazing guy and turns him into a chump. What a waste. It’s just that he doesn’t really fit into the story very well. Why was he at the school and not in Vegas (why he’s attached to her)? Why couldn’t she tell something was wrong before? Why couldn’t anyone else tell? And trying to throw us off? Too obvious.

While I’m on the subject of boys, what’s up with Rath?I’m guessing Vail is trying to save some details for the sequel, but please give us something to look forward to. Readers can sense that he’s important, and we are teased into knowing there’s more in stored where he is concerned, but what we got wasn’t satisfying enough.

And I really wish that Vail had gone more into the society and Clarissa. There’s definitely more there.

I also didn’t like the way the book ended. It reminded me too much of how PC and Kristin Cast ends each House of Night novel with Zoey Redbird saying, “Ah hell.”

I don’t know. I just felt this book just fell short – a little bit here and a little bit there, and overall, it just failed to impress me.